How will Patrick Marleau be remembered here if he is moved before
Tuesday’s NHL trade deadline arrives?

I think he will be more Mike Dunleavy than Terrell Owens; more
gone/good-riddance than the superstar-who-got-away.

I also think it doesn’t really matter what happens to Marleau after he
goes, since it seems that the key thing right now for the Sharks is
merely that he goes.

For chemistry. For a dressing-room kick-start. For the Stanley Cup
playoffs.

Sure, the Sharks won their second in a row Sunday in a shootout at
Pittsburgh to steady their No. 5 playoff positioning in the Western
Conference. Sure, once it gets home, this team could suddenly get hot
and Marleau could be the igniter.

But Marleau was a ghost again Sunday. He wasn’t on the ice when Jonathan
Cheechoo scored the team’s only regulation goal, which meant Marleau
maintained his mind-boggling plus/minus mark of minus-21.

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That, by the way, ranks Marleau 809th in the league out of 813 listed
players. (Bigger blech: He’s minus-14 on home ice.)

“He hasn’t played up to expectations, but I can say that about our team
as a whole,” General Manager Doug Wilson said Sunday morning from
Pittsburgh.

It’s obvious that the Sharks can’t just give away their 28-year-old
captain — or take back a terrible contract — in the middle of this
crucial season; and it’s obvious that Wilson won’t get pushed into a
desperation deal.

It’s pretty clear that trade talks have been complicated by Marleau’s
startlingly unproductive play, the $12.6 million he’s due over the next
two seasons and the abundance of players carrying no-trade clauses
around the league.

Wilson wouldn’t comment on any specific talks involving Sharks players
but repeatedly mentioned that no-trade clauses around the league are
tying up deals.

So if Wilson has already come close to a deal to acquire, just use my
own example (not his), defenseman Tomas Kaberle from Toronto, and
Kaberle has rejected it . . . that’s all part of the NHL trade dance.

But you don’t have to reach to find reasons why, after months of Marleau
anxiety, it’s time for the Sharks to move Marleau if moving him is at
all realistic.

* Some great players respond powerfully when there’s tension with
the coach — not Marleau with Ron Wilson, at least not this season.

It doesn’t look like the Sharks have any plans to change the coach, so
there aren’t a ton of reasons to anticipate a big uptick from Marleau.

The result: He has only 10 goals (one more than Devin Setoguchi), only
29 points, and, with 20 games left, is on track to fall acres short of
his 62-point average over the previous six seasons.

The Sharks don’t need to hold on to Marleau for offense, not as long as
Joe Thornton is around and Cheechoo, Milan Michalek, Joe Pavelski and a
few others pick up the pace.

What the Sharks need is a reset, a new face or two, and some closure.

* The captain’s “C” is a huge deal, which means that Marleau’s
tailspin is about more than just pucks in the net.

Taking away the “C” isn’t unprecedented. But it’s hard to imagine that a
quiet, proud guy like Marleau would take it in stride.

So the only way to smoothly move the “C” to a natural leader such as
Mike Grier or Craig Rivet is to do it . . . after Marleau is traded.

Not surprisingly, Doug Wilson disagreed with my blunt premise.

“A letter does not make a leader,” he said. “Leadership makes a leader,
and we’ve got a lot of guys in there who know what it takes . . .

“There’s a lot of players that have struggled through the year and have
what it takes to say, ‘Enough of this, let’s go.’ The opportunity for
him and for a group of our folks to turn it around is right in front of
us.”

* Marleau’s no-trade clause goes into effect in July. So if you
think the Sharks are under pressure to move him now, how much pricklier
will it be in June if they fizzle out in April or May and Marleau is
about to assume no-trade power?

It would be an inferno. It would be a fire sale. I’m sure Doug Wilson
knows it but won’t enjoy me saying it. Which is why it should happen
now.

The Sharks would be moving Marleau at a low point, but there are
much lower points imaginable.